The fact that we made it is entirely indescribable for me. Not only because it required a serious effort to get here, but also because it reflects the incredible support for Watery.dk that I've truly felt throughout 2018. First, I just want to say thank you for that.
That's why I'm still immensely grateful for every single order. Each and every one brings a little smile to my face :)
But with that goal accomplished, I'll try to take you back through the year with Watery.dk from my perspective as the head coach of TeamWatery and Watery.dk. I want to share what I see as the biggest highlights for Watery and perhaps a little about where Watery is headed in 2019.
First, I want to thank the (central) friends and partners who make a difference behind the scenes every day without being mentioned, ensuring everything can run smoothly and that Watery can achieve the high growth we've experienced:
- Mathias Bjørndal, who programmed our current shop in 2018 and continually improves it.
- Jonas Wiuff, who in 2018 created virtually all the graphic material for Watery.dk, including our swim posters, flyers, and new towels.
- Mike Jensen for ensuring many of you could find Watery when searching for “swimsuit” and many other terms on Google.
- Stefan Lave for making sure as many people as possible could find Watery in Google's organic search results.
- Mathias Johannesen (my little brother), who packs all your weekend orders so they can be out by Monday.
- Krestian Gelmark, who has logged all sorts of products from every supplier.
- Paw (my dad) for keeping the finances in check and being the best sparring partner, and Laila (my mom) for repeatedly helping with warehouse clean-up (and especially inventory counting) when I've had too many tasks myself.
This year, we've also had several interns, whom I'd also like to thank for their efforts.
Without your unwavering dedication to Watery, I could never live my biggest dream. THANK YOU.
But let's get started on looking back at 2018. It was truly an eventful year where I genuinely feel that Watery.dk has been accepted both in the industry among you 230,000 swimmers in Denmark and also on the broader e-commerce stage in Denmark.
January – January Sale
After an overwhelming Black Friday and Christmas sale in 2017, 2018 kicked off with a nearly equally wild January sale. It took up almost the whole month.
February – Politiken and Daniel Skaaning
At the beginning of February, I woke up one morning to news that foreign webshops were gaining market shares at the expense of Danish ones, and that politicians, led by Brian Mikkelsen, had decided to establish an e-commerce center in response. I wasn't pleased with this, as Danish webshops simply need fair market conditions – not information. It's just impossible to match foreign prices due to multiple factors. This resulted in a piece I wrote for Politiken.
In February, we also made a deal with Danish Olympic swimmer and record holder Daniel Skaaning for him to take our followers on Instagram along on his training camp. Our TeamWatery ambassador Daniel Steen Andersen did the same on his camp. It turned out to be something really interesting and was a big endorsement for Watery as a webshop among us swimmers.
March – Swim Meets and E-Commerce Denmark 2018
All four weekends in March, I was out with our large swim stand at various swim meets. It was really great to meet so many of you who loyally shop with us in person. We were both in Kolding, Taastrup, and Ikast.
I was also invited to the stage at our trade organization's big conference, E-Commerce Denmark in Aarhus, to talk about the development of Watery and what I've done right. It was really cool to share what I've learned with Watery with +300 other e-retailers.
April – Swim Caps for Esbjerg, Support for “Swim Denmark Around”
Throughout the year, we've delivered swim caps to over 50 Danish swim clubs, but it was still somewhat special to deliver race caps for Esbjerg Swim Club, which they wore at the major Danish Open event.
Additionally, we supported Lars in his wild project “Swim Around Denmark” with all sorts of awesome swimwear and swimming equipment, which during the summer went on an extraordinary journey: swimming all around Denmark—a feat that no one had done before. He also raised funds along the way for overweight children and people with depression. It was great to support, and that Watery swim caps ended up on national TV channels DR and TV2 and in a number of newspapers was just a bonus.
In April, Watery also landed on the front page of Ekstra Bladet online with a little inspirational story for other young entrepreneurs. In the first hour after it was published, we set a new visitor record on Watery.dk with over 1,500 people on the site at the same time. That was pretty wild.
May – E-Commerce Award, Confirmations, Brazil
For many, May is all about confirmations. It was the same for one of our customers. Here, the child had wished for a swim-themed confirmation, and we got a rather unique task of creating 4 different types of swim caps: one type with guests’ names as invitations, one type with the confirmand's name for the table, one type with individual participants' names as place cards, and finally, a specially designed swim cap that only he, the confirmand, has in the entire world. That was a pretty cool task.
In the middle of May, I was invited to Brazil by the former e-commerce manager of bilka.dk along with four other Danes to give a talk at one of the world's largest e-commerce conferences “Vtexday” with 14,000 participants. Again, completely surreal and incredibly huge, but now they already know what Watery is in Brazil if we ever expand there. But besides my own talk, it was mostly a trip where I brought back loads of inspiration for improving Watery.dk from the minds behind brands like Bestseller, Asos.com, Netflix, and others.
Immediately after my return from Brazil, with Mathias making sure all your packages were still dispatched on time the day after ordering, Watery was nominated for two prizes at the E-Commerce Award hosted by the Association of Danish Internet Trading: “Year's Oddball” and “Best New E-Commerce Company.” Watery famously won “Year's Oddball” and placed fifth in Best New E-Commerce Company at the grand award show. Yet another completely unrealistic experience, once again affirming my hardworking commitment to Watery. If you want to read more about it, I wrote this post back in May.
June and July – A Lot of Shipments
Throughout June and July, the focus was on managing an increasing volume of shipments because, due to the extraordinary heat, Danes needed bikinis and swim trunks more than ever. So, those two months were largely spent on that.
August – Autumn Collections
Back again in late August, the long-awaited autumn collections from first Arena, then Speedo and finally Funkita/Funky Trunks, arrived. This meant that within a week, almost 400 new products were added with all kinds of delightful swimwear.
September – Watery 3.0
The one improvement that occupied most of my time and interest in 2018 was a project that Mathias and I brainstormed in late January.
The reason was that from the start we had built Watery.dk on a template in the shop system since it was cheaper initially, but it started to create bigger issues as I wanted more functions and as the number of products and visitors grew.
Thus, we decided to start from scratch and code the entire site from the ground up. A task larger than initially expected, as I kept suggesting new features that also needed implementing.
The first deadline in May was quickly pushed back several times until we finally reached September. However, the platform was ready by then.
Today, I look back on it as the best strategic investment to date—not only because I can see from the numbers that you appreciate the shop's new functions and ease, but also from the feedback I actually get in chats and post-purchase that is always encouraging.
Well, September was mostly spent completing that, once and for all.
October – 2nd Birthday, Video Shoot, Selfmade, New Posters
October kicked off with an overwhelming 2nd birthday for Watery, breaking the previous sales record for one day from the previous Black Friday. That was great.
Then there were still a few top-secret video shootings with Watery ambassador Rasmus Udbye and Krestian. I have a goal of bringing even more of my and our ambassadors' knowledge about our many swimming products to you in an easy and digestible way—and here, video is going to play a central role. The shoots took place both in water and on land. This will probably be ready during January this year, but check out this little sneak peek.
In October, another company, Lunarway, launched a competition for entrepreneurs named Selfmade. They created a series of videos about other entrepreneurs, including Watery.
At the end of October, Jonas also completed the latest swim posters. They've already proven successful this Christmas, where many of the new ones are nearly sold out again. This confirms for me that Watery should continue to develop new and different products that none of the other swim shops offer. So, there's much more to come in the new year.
November – Black Friday, 60 Ambassadors
November was 100% about Black Friday. It's a true celebration day for webshops like Watery and probably my personal favorite day of the year. It quickly evolved into the largest day in Watery's history in terms of visitors on the shop, the number of orders, and the phone and live chat were busy all day. We reached nearly 1,000 orders in the 24 hours—which also meant that 10 young guys were packing your many orders for almost 12 hours straight late into the night. A “fun” remark from the day was that I accidentally marked a swimbag down from its usual 469 kr to 124 kr instead of the planned 248 kr. I discovered the mistake 10 minutes later, but all 26 bags in that color had already been sold. Some people got a really inexpensive Christmas gift there, didn't they?
One of the things that made this possible was that nearly 60 of the best swimmers agreed to promote Watery in the days leading up to the event. It was amazing to witness such support for Watery from such great and respected swimmers. Through this campaign, Watery reached almost 70,000 swimmers, creating 5,400 likes and bringing 11,000 visitors to Watery.dk's Instagram profile.
December – Christmas
Yes, in December there really wasn't time for anything else but ensuring that your orders got out lightning-fast and before Christmas Eve. That was the most important thing. Everything was delivered on time, though it's no secret that the office was overflowing with unpacked boxes, shipping labels, abandoned products, and so on. But you didn't see that, of course. All in all, December was yet another record-breaking month, just like the 11 before it.
Not Only Highlights
Overall, when I look back on everything that happened with Watery in 2018, I'm quite satisfied regarding what I planned for the year. Generally, it's been a year focused on reaching a broader swimming audience, where I've chosen to invest a lot of money and hours in laying a really solid foundation for 2019 and beyond.
However, it has certainly not all been highlights, and I think it's important to emphasize that. I could mention just as many not-so-great episodes as the fantastic things above, but these episodes are naturally dealt with internally and are therefore difficult to mention. However, I can say, for example, that I ordered a bit too many products at once in August when one brand, in particular, didn't sell as expected, and we ended up stuck with too much in terms of liquidity (it's been resolved now). Another aspect was that 2018 was also the year when Watery's direct competitors really noticed us—for better and for worse. Apparently, they preferred focusing on Watery rather than their own business, but that's their choice. In any case, it has only fueled my personal appetite to offer you, as customers of Watery, a much, much better customer experience, so you wouldn't even consider other shops when it comes to swimming equipment and swimwear. Isn't that a deal, just between you and me? ;)
What about 2019?
We've reached the end of 2018; impressive if you’re still with me. Now, it's time to look ahead to 2019. A year I'm incredibly excited about.
Fundamentally, I’ll be focusing on the same initiatives as in 2018—sharing more knowledge about our products with you through video and text, daily focus on improving your shopping experience on the site, and not to mention better and faster service through chat, mobile, and email.
I can also let you in on a little secret that for the past three months, I've been quietly preparing for Watery to open in Sweden and Norway in Q1, so that the rest of Scandinavia can enjoy us.
I sincerely hope you'll continue to be part of the journey—I'm ready more than ever to give you a customer experience beyond the ordinary!
Daniel Johannesen,
Head of TeamWatery